Article December 15, 1928 Issue

Tracts and pamphlets that are occasionally circulated in...

Theodore Burkhart, Committee on Publication for the State of Oregon,—Bandon

Western World

Tracts and pamphlets that are occasionally circulated in your community by itinerants, attacking Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy, its Discoverer and Founder, and charging Christian Science with being contradictory and unscriptural, lead me to offer something on the subject for the information of your readers.

Falsehoods as to the life of Mrs. Eddy, emanating from discredited sources, have long been circulated by the enemies of Christian Science. All well-informed speakers and authors know that Mrs. Eddy's life-history is an open book, having been subjected to the closest scrutiny on the part of friends and foes alike; and the truth can easily be learned by any sincere inquirer who will investigate with an open mind and seek information from reliable sources. Mrs. Eddy never spoke more truly than when she said, "Nothing has occurred in my life's experience which, if correctly narrated and understood, could injure me" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 298). Is it reasonable to expect to arrive at a just estimate of a person or a religion by accepting the stories told by its persecutors? There is no more truth in the assertion that Mrs. Eddy was illiterate and untruthful, or that she taught immoral doctrines or chastised disloyal students by "firing mental bullets" at them, than in the charges made against the Master when his foes called him a glutton and a winebibber, and said he was inspired by Beelzebub. Christ Jesus founded Christianity. Mary Baker Eddy discovered the scientific nature of Jesus' teachings and their full significance, and how to apply those teachings to the needs of suffering humanity.

For a time (in fact, for about three centuries) Jesus' followers did as he said they could do: they practiced the Christian virtues and healed the sick and sinning, and even raised the dead, without the aid of material means. During the succeeding centuries, however, erroneous practices crept in, his teachings became perverted and misunderstood, and people were educated into thinking that the healing of the sick by the power of God had been a special gift to a selected few and for a limited period of time. Unfortunately for suffering humanity, the failure to grasp the real meaning and full significance of Jesus' sayings has led the great mass of professing Christians to believe that while the sinning may turn directly to God for salvation in this life, the sick and dying may not. Much of this limited and darkened sense of the truth originally taught by Jesus has been due to a material and too literal interpretation of the Scriptures. Finally, in this present age, after a lifetime of experience and reaching out for the light, Mrs. Eddy made the discovery that the healing power of God is just as available to us to-day as ever it was to Jesus and his immediate followers; and, moreover, her discovery included definite rules comprising all that is needed to enable one to acquire a demonstrable knowledge of how to avail one's self of the divine power. This scientific understanding of God, man, and the universe, and of the laws that govern the latter, she named "Christian Science."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Tracts and pamphlets that are occasionally circulated in...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access